“A Satisfied Customer is the Best Business Strategy” – Michael LeBoeuf 

People run businesses, and people do business with people they know, like and trust. Or as Theodore Roosevelt put it “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Caring for your customers, also means set boundaries with your customers, and for yourself and your teams. Learning how to do this is a skill which takes time and practice. Including a How We Work With You guide or discussion item in your first meetings and reminding customers along the way of the process can assist you in managing those boundaries in positive ways.

A – Attend and Ask

Ask your customers what they need and want, and listen carefully to what they’re saying and what they’re not saying.
“The trick is figuring out what the problem really is. It’s the biggest challenge startups face when launching a new product. Ask a customer about their problems and they will often tell you what they think you want to hear. It’s not done on purpose, but customers don’t know what they don’t know. Sometimes, they don’t even realize they have a problem.” Alex Criss (Venturebeat)

R – Refer often

Be known as a Trusted Adviser that connects your customers to experts, when their needs exceed your offering, capabilities or experience.

Great customer service doesn’t always mean you’re the one providing the service, because great customer experience is actually what you need to focus on to grow. If your customers and people in general see your business as a go-to for help the chances of attracting people who need your service or product, even if they don’t know that’s what you do, increase dramatically.

It also means referral partner businesses feel comfortable that you don’t dabble in things you don’t understand or excel in. – Don’t be afraid to niche. Be the best at what you do and run along side others who are doing the same.

E – Excellence

Under promise, over deliver – is a service strategy in which service providers strive for excellent customer service and satisfaction by doing more than they say they will for the customer or exceeding customer expectations.
Small businesses need to be very careful with this approach. What if your customer doesn’t want you to do more, could you over-step the bounds of the scope of work? Will doing more delay the process and hurt your ability to deliver what the customer wants from you?

You also need to make sure the gap isn’t too great between what is promised and what is delivered. Customers aren’t stupid, the slick sales processes that offer unrealistic promises or repeatedly over promising could undermine your integrity.
Excellence in customer service is about being realistic, delivering quality and value, and communicating well in a timely manner. Your customer should never be left guessing about what’s going on.

“Do what you do so well, they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” Walt Disney.

If they have to chase you, you’re not setting realistic expectations, or over promising.

Great processes help you to set, manage and deliver on expectations your customers will have of your service or product. In a recent Forbes article on Small Business Customer Service, Micah Solomon refers to the cliff of dissatisfaction.

Which is the term he uses for the moment when a customer loses patience with your company. “Starbucks, for example, knows exactly how long it takes until a customer is too frustrated to contentedly wait any longer, and as soon as this happens on a regular basis, they go ahead and open another Starbucks nearby.”
For a small business, this is a tricky issue, because you can’t readily clone yourself and because you may not even know when your customers are getting frustrated by your slow service, unless you have great processes in place to monitor and measure customer satisfaction.

“The Customers Perception Is Your Reality” – Kate Zabriskie.

If there’s one thing you do this week in your business; ask yourself how good is our customer’s experience? Then ask what could we do to make it so amazing that they want to tell everyone they know how good we are?

Need help creating a clear customer experience map and processes, Contact Us today.

Photo By Patrick Tomasso (Unsplash)